Sandwich Woman: How does the older woman survive the office party?

This week, the beleaguered Kate Reddy, Allison Pearson’s much-loved character
from 'I Don’t Know How She Does It', cleans up after her daughter's teenage
party - and wonders if she should get Botox ahead of the office party

Kate Reddy, heroine of I Don’t Know How She Does It – the international best-selling novel by Allison Pearson which began life as a weekly Telegraph column – was a working mother juggling a crazy job, two small children, a long-suffering husband and a giant to-do list. Now aged 49 and a half, Kate is dealing with hormonal teenagers, her own menopause, a spouse who has retrained as a counsellor and increasingly frail elderly parents. In middle age, Kate finds herself squeezed between the demands of two generations while still trying to make sense of life.

Aftermath of Emily’s Christmas Party.

Neighbours’ calls to the police: 5.

Number of letters received from neighbours saying, “You’re an absolute disgrace to the neighbourhood”: 1.

Number of half-empty bottles found on shelves, in wardrobes, under kitchen sink, behind loo etc: 59.

Number of Carlsberg cans found so far in flowerbeds: 124.

Date at which garden can reasonably be expected to be a Carlsberg-free zone: between 2089 and early 22nd century.

Number of years Richard will be able to crow “I told you so” – 35, or until death do us part.

Identity of little bastard who tore pages out of my Pride and Prejudice to roll joints: unknown Snowman.

Estimate for redecorating hall and living room, including replacement of cloakroom window and toilet cistern: £513.97.

“Everyone says it was like the coolest party ever, Mum,” a buoyant Emily reported over breakfast. “I know Daddy thinks it was like really bad, but they’re usually much worse. At Jessica’s party, they gave the chickens alcopops and they all died.”

11.07am: Offices of Royal EM. If Monica Bellucci can become a Bond Girl at the age of 50, then I have no reason to fear going to the office party tonight at the age of 49 and a half, do I? Spend morning at my desk doing “research for clients” while intently studying website pictures and comparing Monica today with the young Monica in her first modelling shots. Thirty-two years ago, her astounding 18-year-old beauty struggled to make itself known through layers of make-up and a hairstyle that was part Standard Poodle, part Jennifer Beals in Flashdance. Somehow very comforting to know that even Monica Bellucci had an awful Eighties perm. Most girls in my year obediently got one, following the fashion like the style sheep we were. Major error. The Eighties perm looked like pubic hair on steroids.

Bitter Irony of Being a Woman No 569: When you are young and beautiful – because youth IS beauty – you seldom know how to make the best of yourself. (Look at Emily, a size 6/8 hiding in in a sludge-grey, baggy “boyfriend” jumper.) By the time you’ve figured out what works, youth has got its coat on and is hurrying out the door, and you spend your time and money finding lotions and potions and procedures that will recreate the effect Mother Nature bestowed for free, and which you took for granted.

For instance, my bathroom cabinet at home is a shrine to the Goddess of Anti-Ageing. Let’s call her Dewy. Pots and vials of serums and moisturisers, all promising to put the clock back to the year when my “beauty regime” consisted of Anne French deep cleansing milk in the white bottle, which I used to wipe off the oil on the skin I must now preserve, and TCP to kill spots after popping them. I can still feel its searing sting thirty years later.

“Incredible. Can’t believe they chose a 50-year-old to be a Bond girl.”

I swivel my chair and my nose almost ends up in the pinstriped crotch of my boss, Jay-B. He is standing very close, looking over my shoulder at the screen and giving the divine Monica a crude, appraising stare. “Not bad for an old bird, though,” he says.

“I would,” sniggers Jay-B’s sidekick, Troy. Since when did City boys all have to have names like African-American basketball players? We all know they’re public schoolboys, married to Annabels and Lucys, who catch the 6.44 from Sevenoaks.

There is that moment, when men are loudly weighing up another woman like a piece of meat, when a woman who is present has to decide whether to collude with them, to keep a complicit silence and give only a mildly pained smile. In my experience, pretending to be one of the boys on such occasions is the safest strategy. Otherwise you risk being labelled as a humourless feminist (all feminists are, by definition, humourless). But I’m not in the mood. Not today when my Christmas to-do list is longer than the Treaty of Versailles and Ben’s bloody carol concert is this afternoon.

“How gallant of you, Troy,” I say, “I’m sure Monica Bellucci, probably the most beautiful actress in the world, would be thrilled to know that you’d be prepared to do her a favour and have sex with her.”

Troy is uncertain how to take this. A blush spreads up his pale face till the skin around his ginger sideburns glows red and pimply. He looks at Jay-B to see what his reaction should be. There is a moment, no more than a few seconds, when it could go either way. Then, Jay-B says, not unpleasantly: “Few years to go till you face the big Five-O, eh, Kate? Glad to see you’ve got time in Marketing to surf celebrity websites.”

“It’s research," I say quickly. “Anti-ageing. Could be a really big area for us. Did you know that the desire of American women to mask the signs of advancing age with creams and other beauty products is expected to grow the market to $114 billion in 2015? That’s up from $80 billion in 2011. Astonishing, actually. Even in the recession, the prestige beauty products – those are the high-end creams you get in department stores – have increased by 11 per cent, according to Nasdaq. So oil is going down, Sony Pictures is down, but moisturiser is the new gold.”

“Because,” I think but do not say, “guys like you think women my age have outlived our relevance to society, so we fake youth for as long as we possibly can. Even if it means we end up looking pickled like Madonna. And some of us are so desperate we even pretend we are 42 so we can re-enter a jobs market that treats us as a clapped-out liability.”

“See you later at the party, Kate?” says Jay-B with what I hope is not a wink. “Dress to Impress.”

I always do.

Email to Kate Reddy from Candy Stratton

Subject: Party Panic!

Katie, do not, repeat DO NOT, get Botox for the first time on the day of the office party. You can’t risk it. You could end up with one eye closed. Not a good look unless you’re a pirate. The cheek stuff I told you about is more than $1,000 per shot. It’s meant to lift and restore fullness that we lose as we become wizened old hags. The goal is the apple cheek look, not chipmunk.

Also there’s liposuction for slurping out tenacious lumps. Or this new cool sculpting thing where u freeze the hell out of fat lumps and they vanish. Not sure how.

Just get your hair done for the party, invest in the finest engineering from Agent Provocateur and don’t stand in direct light. You look pretty damn amazing for 49. xxC

2.43pm: I was actually resenting the time it would take me to get the train back home for the carol concert, then turn around and head straight back to London for the party. Six days left till Christmas and I have 11 days worth of tasks to do. Would it really hurt to miss it just this once? After all, Richard would be there for Ben. Who was I kidding? Emily still remembers the single ballet recital I missed in the summer of 2004. It is inscribed in indelible ink in the Ledger of Maternal Neglect. Just as well I went to the concert because my boy did a solo on percussion which, in true Ben fashion, he had forgotten to mention. You know those moments when you see your child in a whole new light? Well, this was one of those. That sulky, hoodied creature who grumps around at home was transformed into a glorious young man moving deftly from drums to cymbal. His sleigh bells nearly brought the house down. Afterwards, there was tea and mince pies in the hall. “You look pretty, Mum,” said Ben. “New hair?”

My friend Claire rushed past triumphantly waving a box of Waitrose all-butter mince pies. “It’s fine to donate these. No one minds any more. Do you remember that woman we heard about who distressed supermarket mince pies and pretended she made them herself?”

Oh, yes, I remember.

11.29pm: At the party, I channelled Goddess Bellucci, wearing my old but still lovely black satin Dolce & Gabbana dress which hoiks the right bits up and holds the wrong bits in. Jay-B even introduced me to the Chairman, “This is our new recruit, Kate Reddy, from Marketing.” The chairman looked me up and down, as if I was in the paddock at Ascot or in a car showroom. “Good to have you on board, young lady,” he boomed, “heard great things about you. Keep it up!”